A Taste of the Games and a Suite Surprise

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Olympic Rings
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

We woke up later than planned due to jet lag and three pairs of ears not hearing our alarm. A five hour time change doesn't seem too bad but it's enough to make one tired for the first couple days. After quick showers we left for the Olympic Park.

Our Kings Cross Hotel is close to the Saint Pancras International Rail Station, which has a high-speed rail link to Stratford and the Olympic Park. That coupled with "free" transportation with the purchase of our Olympic tickets made the trip a 45 minute breeze hotel-to-park. 

Olympic Statue
Olympic Park
London

Abbey & The Aquatics Center
Olympic Park
London

Jen & Abbey had tickets to the first event which included:

• Women's 100m Backstroke
• Men's 200m Freestyle
• Women's 100m Breaststroke
• Men's 100m Backstroke
• Women's 400m Freestyle
• Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay
  

Jen & Abbey
Aquatics Center, Olympic Park
London

They saw Ryan Lochte swim and had a great time at the aquatics center.

Starting
Aquatics Center, Olympic Park
London

Mens Freestyle
Aquatics Center, Olympic Park
London

From there we met up with Mark and made our way to the food court at the Westfield Mall in Stratford, one of the largest shopping malls in the UK. The olympic park is connected to the mall, and it was packed. We shared a table with a former swim coach for Canada and the UK. This was his 12th summer olympics over 48 years!

Westfield Mall Food Court at Lunchtime
Stratford
London

We made our way over to the O2 arena in North Greenwich to catch the ladies artistic gymnastics qualifying event. When we got there, we went to our seats, and were pleasantly surprised to find that we had a suite to share with a dozen of our closest american strangers.

Our Suite for Gymnastics
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

Mark, Abbey & Jen
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

Gymnanstics
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

The event featured the US, Canada, GB, France, Germany, Russia, and China. The US Ladies ran away with the competition.

McKayla Maroney Vaulting
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

Gabby Douglas
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

Gabby Douglas on the Uneven Bars
Greenwich (O2) Arena
London

After that went to Covent Garden, where we had dinner at "The Globe" feasting on fish & chips for Mark & Abbey featuring smashed peas, which Jen enjoyed.

Abbey with Fish & Chips
London

We ended our evening with a ride on the London Eye, taking in the evening views of the wonderful city of London.

London Eye at Night
London

Big Ben at Night
London

London Calling

Saturday July 28, 2012

After an uneventful flight into Zurich we arrived and sailed through immigration without a hitch.  As predicted before we stepped onto the plane in Newark the delay in departure did cause us to miss our connecting  flight to Berlin.  Mark worked his charm on the Swiss Air Transport personnel and scored us a flight direct from Zurich to London Heathrow.  To our surprise our in-flight snack was strawberry ice cream (Movenpick - a Swiss Brand - try it if you get the chance!)

We breezed through immigration at Heathrow and navigated our way to the hotel at King's Cross.  A quick shower rotation later and we were back out on the town to get familiar with our route to the Olympic park for the coming day. After an evening stroll through Green Park, we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.


(First Olympic post to come 7/31 @ 6AM EST!)

The Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made

Friday July 27, 2012

On Friday, we got up and headed into New York City. Mark found parking at a lot in midtown and we headed towards Times Square.

Abbey in Times Square
New York, New York

We came across this guy beating on his drum, apparently he's the "Naked Indian"... Not to be confused with the "Naked Cowboy". Note that in 1864, he was New York's finest, at least that's what the bus says.

Naked Indian
New York, New York

Following that we met Mark's roommate from freshman year, Derrick, for lunch. We went to a Japanese restaurant and taught Abbey how to eat with chopsticks.

Abbey & Chopsticks
Sapporo
New York, NY

After a filling lunch we said goodbye to Derrick and took Abbey on her first ride (of many) on a real live subway. We visited Ground Zero, noticed the line to go to the memorial was waaaaay too long, noted the progress on the new World Trade Center tower, then went down Wall Street.

Abbey & Jen
Tiffany's
New York, NY

From Wall Street, we headed down to Battery Park and showed Abbey Lady Liberty.

Abbey
Battery Park
New York, NY

We all went uptown and caught up with Mark's friend and former coworker, Farooq at a Mediterranian  restaurant. We enjoyed appetizers of falafel, hummus, couscous, and lemonada (a combination of mint and lemonade).

After that we walked back to our car (30 blocks, 8 avenues) and headed for the airport. The Lincoln Tunnel was backed way up and it took us about an hour-and-a-half to get out of Manhattan, while trying to make our flight.

We got to the airport with an hour to get the car back and get through security, rushed to the terminal, and promptly found out our flight was delayed two hours. This meant we would miss our connecting flight as we only had an hour connection time in Zurich.

Rain? What's that?

Thursday, July 26, 2012


When Dan & Becky arrived with Abbey we were pretty well packed and ready to go. Once Jen got home from work, we left and started our trek to New York City.


It rained. The entire drive. For those of you not in Cleveland, we have been having an extremely dry summer. 


We spent the night in a hotel about an hour-and-a-half outside of Manhattan. It overlooked a nice valley in eastern PA.

Rings and Things

This is the beginning of our latest vacation. It will include visits to the following places:

• New York City
• London
• Eastern Europe

This all started back in December. Typically vacations fall into our laps with cheap air fares. ($500 tickets to Peru, $200 vacations to Vegas, $300 to Hawaii, etc) This year, we weren't seeing anything interesting so we decided to plan one ourselves.

Now, we struggled and struggled trying to figure out where to go... #firstworldproblems Offhandedly, Jen said "Let's take Abbey (my niece) to London for the Olympics, you know I love London and she loves swimming". After getting permission from my brother and sister-in-law, we started looking at tickets. We waffled, and because we were closing on a house we decided to put it off.

We checked the ticketing site over the next couple months, and everything was consistently sold out that we had an interest in. In February however, more tickets became available. We acquired tickets over the next couple months for several events, including 3 swimming events, ladies gymnastics, and ladies beach volleyball.

On Sunday, March 4th, we were down in Columbus for Abbey's Confirmation. We staged telling her about the event in the form of a 20 questions game. We had "clues" and "hints" to help her along. The "hints" were in the form of little wrapped presents (travel bottles, a small US flag, etc) and they each had a tag with a "ring" on them (olympic colored, of course). She guessed it with four questions to spare. Needless to say, the look on her face was priceless.